Alastair Meeks: current odds on the Government winning are value

2016 has had many twists and turns, but from a lawyer’s viewpoint one of the treats has been the unfolding of the Article 50 case. We have been given the opportunity to observe perhaps the most important case in constitutional law for nearly 200 years.

Let’s set to one side the disgraceful behaviour of the press and some extremist politicians in seeking to bludgeon the judiciary into submission regardless of what the law itself might require. The case itself has so far been a fantastic advertisement for British justice. We have seen the law move speedily – Jarndyce v Jarndyce is an out-of-date cliché that is going to be a lot easier to shrug off now. It has captured the public’s imagination because of its potential impact on Brexit. The Supreme Court has made full transcripts of its hearings available at the end of each session and anyone who wished to could follow its proceedings live, watching some of the cleverest people in the country tussle with legal precedent and practical principle, with the parties’ written arguments made freely available also.

The advocates had their arguments tossed and gored in public, with proceedings being live-tweeted by professional journalists and legal enthusiasts. Judgment is now expected some time in January.

Off the back of this and after some feline testing by some of the Supreme Court judges of the Government’s position, the betting public has concluded that it is pretty likely that the first instance judgment will be upheld by the Supreme Court. At the time of writing, “overrule” was last matched on Betfair at 5 (4/1 in fractional odds). Is this right?

Before the case was heard at first instance, I ventured the opinion that the applicants’ case stood a good chance. At the time, I was going out on a limb because the weight of the legal academic argument was very much tilting the other way. This now seems to be completely forgotten about. Yet the legal academic argument on the Government’s side is still all there and was made in great detail and with great skill for the Government by James Eadie QC. This is not one of those cases where all the arguments point one way.

So what happens next? There’s a latent assumption by many that at the end of the advocacy, the judges’ thinking stops. This simply isn’t true. It’s not true of the most routine case in front of one judge (I’ve seen a judge have further thoughts after he had issued a draft judgment) and it especially won’t be true of perhaps the most important constitutional judgment for nearly 200 years that’s been heard by 11 judges.

“40. A rather different aspect of Supreme Court judgments is how they come to be written. I have been keen to encourage a more collegiate, even a collaborative, approach towards judgment-writing. Although the trend is somewhat variable, there has been a greater tendency towards decisions with single judgments, and a definite increase in the number of jointly authored judgments…

41. So far as mechanics are concerned, following the sending round of draft judgments, we often have email discussions and we not infrequently have meetings, sometimes to see whether we can agree on a single judgment, sometimes to reduce or eliminate differences, and sometimes for competing views to be discussed. These discussions often, but I must admit not always, result in some re-drafting and a greater measure of agreement than existed before.

42. I hope – and believe – that these practices not only help foster good relations, a good sense of collegiality, between the Justices, but also serve to produce judgments which are of a better quality than if we did not adopt them. These practices do however have two disadvantages. First, greater collaboration means that Justices have to give more time to each decision than they otherwise would have to give. In one or two cases, Justices have found themselves writing the eleventh version of a judgment in order to deal with different colleagues’ different concerns – or even the same colleague’s changing concerns. Secondly, for the same reason, it means that litigants may have to wait a bit longer for their judgments.”

Only Supreme Court judges themselves will know exactly how this works but it seems pretty clear from this detailed account that there can be a lot of additional debate. The words of their judgments will be studied for generations to come. They will want to make sure they impress. With eleven judges deliberating on a hugely controversial case, the advocacy in this case will be likely to prove only a springboard for the discussion to come.

So I have to say that I find the prices in this market quite absurd. While I stick by my original view that the applicants’ case has much to commend it, this is a long way from a done deal and even taking the bleakest view I can of the Government’s case I can’t see it as worse than a 2/1 shot. At 4/1 or thereabouts on Betfair, it’s clearly worth backing. Do so.

Alastair Meeks

Half of GE2015 LAB voters now abandoned the party

And barely a third of GE2015 LAB voters rate Corbyn as best PM

Given that it is barely three months since Corbyn was re-elected with a huge majority it is hard to see what the party can do. They are stuck with a leader who appears to repel voters and with him in place there appears no obvious way back.

This is a story that will just go on with lucky Theresa the main beneficiary.

Labour is now seeing itself being squeezed by the revitalised LDs going for the 48.11% remainers and UKIP under its new leadership seeking to appeal to 51.89% Brexiters.

If it wasn’t for Labour TMay’s government would look shambolic

Ex BBC Political Editor, Nick Robinson, hits the nail on the head with his Tweet this afternoon after another instance of the Foreign Secretary making a statement only for it to be countermanded by Number 10 shortly afterwards.

This latest one was about Saudi Arabia creating an ambivalent view which cannot, surely, be helping relations with the country.

Over a period when members of a government don’t speak as one an impression of incompetence starts to develop which is not good for any party reliant on people’s votes.

I’ve no idea who is at fault here – Mr. Johnson or his boss, Mrs. May. The former has a reputation for making striking statements while the latter is known, fairly or unfairly for her control-freakery. The impression from these ongoing incidents is that the semior members of the government don’t converse as much as you would expect them to.

At some stage Boris has got to find a way of working with the PM or he’ll have to go. Maybe the 6/1 that Ladbrokes is offering as him being the net cabinet exit is a good bet.

Ladbrokes Next Cabinet Exit betting

Mike Smithson

It could be the first where the Michael Crick C4 investigation has an impact

The big party expenses probe by the Electoral Commission that was triggered off by the series of C4 News reports by Michael Crick appears to be edging forward. Yesterday the Lib Dem were fined £20k by the Electoral Commission following a similar move some weeks back against Labour. The Crick investigation has looked mostly at the GE2015 expenses in crucial battlegrounds for the Tories. Guido writes:

“..The focus will be South Thanet where the Tories ran a highly professional “Stop Farage” effort deploying some of their top operatives… Guido sources say that Conservative HQ is bracing itself for the police investigation resulting in criminal charges.

South Thanet misspending a not an Electoral Commission matter. It is a police matter and potentially a criminal offence under sections 81, 82 and 84 of the Representation of the People Act 1983. Back in June Craig Mackinlay, the Tory who beat Farage, failed to block police extending the time available for their investigation of his election expenses spending. The Tories – in a very rare move – tried to block the police from further investigating the campaign. Guido believes that the South Thanet campaign will prove to be the biggest overspend by any political party in any individual seat ever. Guido understands the Tories spent over £200,000 to stop Nigel Farage winning the seat…”

PB sources have also reported concern within the Tory HQ about other seats.

Quite where this would go electorally is hard to say but it looks set to be one of the big domestic political stories of 2017.

Notice that’s he’s described as President of the “Divided States of America”

In the Commons today there is the debate on the Labour motion on the triggering of Article 50 and its neat amendment by the Government to accept the principle but links in a statement on the referendum outcome itself.

Whether TMay is able to set the process of extraction going by her self-imposed end March deadline isn’t clear. Her problem remains that a sizeable group of her own backbenchers are against her and that she does not have a Commons majority for doing it her way.

Mike Smithson

An opportunity for UKIP’s Doctor Nuttall?

While there’s been a huge amount of focus on Richmond Park the by-election in Sleaford and North Hykeham has received far less attention – both from the parties themselves and the media.

The result from last time makes it difficult to see other than a CON hold on a very much reduced turnout. The fact that it is happening in December so close to Christmas is surely going to depress the number of voters who will bother to vote and this, just conceivably, could lead to a shock. The UKIP betting price has moved in although Betfair makes the Tories a 1/9 shot. UKIP latest are 21/2 while the LD are 44/1.

Surprisingly LAB, second last time, are right out of it in the betting.

The LDs, flush from their Richmond Park gain, have been active but nothing on the scale of their operation for last Thursday’s contest. UKIP have been working hard too in what will be the first electoral test under Dr. Nuttall’s leadership. On paper this should be ideal territory.

Mike Smithson

Is it too much to expect Britain’s PR people to check simple facts?

One of the enduring myths from June 23rd was that the polls got it wrong. Some did but most in the official campaign period didn’t as shown in the chart.

That esteemed body that allegedly speaks for PR people, the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA), has announced it is holding an inquiry into polling specifically referencing GE2015 and the June 23rd referendum. Certainly the former was a big polling fail and there has been a major inquiry into what went wrong and many pollsters have made changes. Quite what PR men can add to the serious examination that has taken place is hard to say.

But the suggestion that keeps on getting repeated is that the polls got BREXIT wrong. This is rubbish as I keep on repeating. There were more LEAVE lead polls carried out during the official campaign period than REMAIN ones. The figures were 14 REMAIN leads, 17 LEAVE leads and 3 polls had it tied.

It is certainly true that two or three of the final polls were off the mark but the overall picture was reasonably good.

A big factor was postal voting which started more than three weeks beforehand and represented maybe a fifth of all votes. The greater the time gap between the act of voting and being polled is bound to increase errors.

Mike Smithson

Take the survey in advance of this week’s PB/Polling Matters Podcast

Ahead of this week’s PB/Polling Matters podcast the team have come up with a short survey so that readers of PB can give their thoughts on the biggest winners, losers, shocks and moments from the past year.

Also, perhaps controversially, there is a question in the survey on who people think has been the PB poster of the year.

Mike Smithson

LEAVE voters give them a net negative

Yesterday Ipsos-MORI released its latest trust index and found that 81% saying that judges tell the truth. The fieldwork took place nearly a month ago.

In new YouGov polling asking about favourability a very different picture emerges as the chart above shows. This is based on fieldwork carried out in the middle of last week in the days before today’s start of the historic Article 50 Supreme Court hearing.

The split between the views of REMAIN and LEAVE voters is very striking highlighting the huge divide that had has existed since LEAVE won 51.89% of the votes on June 23rd.

I wonder what the next round of polling on judges favourability is going to look like.

Ipsos Mori have published their annual veracity index, with the Article 50 case being heard in the UK’s highest appellate court, it was amusing to contrast the trust in the enemies of the people judges compared to journalists.

The fieldwork ended just before the High Court ruled against the Government in the Article 50 case, but a substantial part of the fieldwork was carried out whilst the High Court was hearing the case, but before headlines that described the judiciary as the enemies of the people.

TSE

Will Jacob Rees-Mogg defect to UKIP if Mrs May delivers a non-hard Brexit?

Paddy Power have a market up whether some politicians will defect by 2018. On initial glance this looks like a market designed to solely enrich Paddy Power, I did think of backing Douglas Carswell doing a Churchill and defecting back, but given the precedent he has set, he won’t wish to inflict another by election on the voters of Clacton, so that’s that bet ruled out.

But I do wonder whether backing Jacob Rees-Mogg at 12/1 is the way to go. He’s someone who I’d categorise as a supporter of Hard Brexit, a few weeks ago he said the UK should ‘go for a hard white and a runny yolk” on Brexit negotiations.*’

If those are indicators of the likely Brexit deal, I suspect that won’t appeal to Jacob Rees-Mogg and he will try and do something drastic to stop such a deal and/or do something dramatic to express his displeasure. With Mrs May seeing her majority eroded, any recalcitrant Tory MP can imperil the continuation of the government quite easily, and defection is the most powerful option an MP can deploy.

TSE

*Rees-Mogg went on to explain the “hard white” part stood for “absolute clarity we are leaving – no European court, no European law, control of our borders, out of the single market..”, and the runny yolk stood for being “as generous in the negotiations as possible”.

Only the Tories see an improvement in their net ratings

The last time this polling was carried our was in August and since then a lot of things have happened. Note that the fieldwork for this latest polling took place on Tuesday and Wednesday so before the Richmond Park by-election.

UKIP

In August what was then Farage’s party had 24%-62% Favourable-Unfavourable, a net minus 38%. That’s now minus 44%.

CON

The August Tory figures were 34-53 so a net minus of 19%. That’s now down to -16% so an improvement of 3 points for TMay’s party.

LAB

The August polling took place during the leadership election and before Corbyn was re-elected. Then LAB was 28-56 a net minus of 28%. That’s now moved 29-59 a net minus of 30%

LD

Farron’s party was 27-51 which has move to 29-55%

SNP

The SNP was 24-53 in August. That’s now moved to 22-57. So a change from a net minus 29% to minus 35%

Mike Smithson

Last night we had Radio 4’s Any Questions in town. It was a good evening except for the fact that there was no Lib Dem on the panel. Instead we had as well as the statutory LAB & CON rep an SNP MP and the barely coherent deputy UKIP leader, Peter Whittle.

You’d have thought that the BBC planners would have figured out that the Richmond by-election was taking place the day before and would likely feature a Lib Dem or made provisions just in case they had a good result. Without one on the panel they were unable to take direct questions on the election outcome.

Many were furious by this and the presence, yet again by the BBC, of a Kipper – a party that is struggling in all the elections it is fighting at the moment and didn’t even field a candidate in Richmond.

The chart above graphically illustrates how poorly UKIP has been doing in Westminster by elections this year. The BBC should take notice.

Mike Smithson

A smaller majority and greater Brexit pressure could force May’s hand

The Lib Dems have their mojo back. Their result in Witney was good but safe seat or not, second is the best-placed loser. It’s winning that counts and it was a win that was delivered in Richmond Park on Thursday. After more than ten years without a gain, the campaign surge, the tactical votes and the Friday celebration must come as a long-overdue reminder of the good old days – and possibly the good young days. That’s yet to be seen.

What it also does, in terms of raw maths, is reduce the notional Conservative majority to 8. True, Sinn Fein abstentions increase that a little and if put in a corner, votes might be won from Ulster and from Carswell (at a price, presumably), but what was already a tight situation just got tighter.

What the Richmond Park result shouldn’t do is panic the government. The by-election was an unusual contest in an unusual seat. Its dynamics are unlikely to be repeated and certainly wouldn’t be at a general election, where the government of the country is at stake. Even the scenario of a Con-LD battle in a heavily and passionately Remain seat is relatively rare. The idea that Richmond Park is somehow representative of a national anti-Brexit reaction is for the birds.

What we should take seriously is the prospect of a 2017 general election. The government is under pressure from the Commons, the Lords and the courts. Of these, the courts get first shot, next week. If the Supreme Court upholds the decision of the High Court then we’re in for a parliamentary battle to trigger Article 50 – or, more accurately, over the terms under which it’ll be triggered.

For all Olney vowed to oppose the Brexit process even beginning, the reality is that the 9 Lib Dem MPs are irrelevant to that end. The Commons will vote Article 50 through if that’s what’s needed. They might not, however, do so in a way that gives the government the blank sheet it’d like. Any Bill can be amended and you can well see Remain MPs trying to alter it so as to, for example, mandate the government to stay within the Single Market.

In all probability, the Commons would fail on that score. Labour isn’t sufficiently united and there won’t be enough Tory rebels.

What it also won’t do is legislate for a second referendum because unlike in the message going out to the electorate, MPs know that a second referendum would be a fraud. There would be no ‘Remain’ and no ‘try again’ option; the choices would be the Brexit deal as negotiated or a chaotic exit – which is not really any choice at all. That’s why it’s so important to those who want to make Brexit as Light as possible (or to frustrate it entirely) to tie the government’s hands before negotiations get going.

But if the Commons isn’t that much of a concern to the government, the Lords might be. Emboldened by the Richmond Park result and already looking for an excuse to both give the government a bloody nose and minimise the effect of Brexit, Lib Dem peers might well do what the Commons couldn’t and, together with their Labour colleagues, some cross-benchers and perhaps even some Tory rebels, attach conditions the government cannot live with. And while they’d be on extremely sticky ground opposing Article 50, amending the legislation is a different matter; that’s one thing the Lords is there for.

If the Bill does come back down the corridor to the Commons with a series of directives to the government contained within it, that puts Theresa May in an awkward situation. Moral pressure might prove effective after the Lords have made a token stand but if Labour and Lib Dem peers feel that the public mood has changed, they could dig their heels in, knowing that the Parliament Act couldn’t be invoked for another 12 months, by when the Brexit Date would be pushing the 2020 general election.

So the alternative is to force an election on the specifics of Brexit. That does of course mean putting at least some kind of plan forward and it’s clear that right now, the government is some way from being able to do that. But whether to the country or to the House, it will at some point before too long need to say more about what its objectives are.

Can an election be forced given the FTPA? The simple answer is yes. The first and best option is to put a motion down and dare the other MPs to vote it down. The reserve plan is, if the dissolution motion fails, to force a No Confidence vote and ensure no new government can form. Once that’s happened, an election follows two weeks later.

On the low politics angle, there would no doubt be advice going to Mrs May to the extent that it’d be sensible to capitalise on the big poll leads while she can and while Corbyn is still in place. Neither can be guaranteed for 2020 but the opportunity to ditch him before May 2017 will be limited in the extreme.

At the moment, the odds on offer for a 2017 election vary widely, from evens with bet365 to 9/4 with 188bet. Evens is too short but anything top side of 6/4 probably contains some value.

Like in previous tight CON-LD fights LAB got squeezed. So what?

A lot of tosh has been written today about Labour’s loss of deposit for coming in under 5% in Richmond Park. That its vote total of 1,515 was lower than the 1,600 party members it has in the constituency has provided fuel for those wanting to attack the leadership on this.

What people haven’t appreciated are the sheer dynamics of a by-election like this. Once it becomes in that over-used cliche “a Two horse race” then the other contenders are going to be squeezed and many Labour activists and members found themselves voting for the one most likely to beat Goldsmith.

The hugely intensive leaflet and post board campaigns with lots of visible on the ground activity were all designed to highlight to LAB voters that the only way to use their ballot effectively was to go with the Lib Dem.

The Yellows were helped to a degree by the nature of Zac’s Mayoral campaign in the Spring. This made beating him even more important than just getting one over on the Tories. LAB voters were also prepared to hold their noises and ignore the coalition ears which is still held against Farron’s party.

The Richmond Park result is as worrying for LAB as Christchurch was in the 1992-1997 parliament where the red team was squeezed even more than overnight – it means nothing.

It wasn’t just in Richmond Park where the yellows had success

Richmond Park (Ind defence, elected as Conservative) to Westminster Parliament
Result: Liberal Democrat 20,510 (50% +31%), Independent 18,638 (45% -13% on Conservative), Labour 1,515 (4% -8%), Loony Party 184 (0%, no candidate in 2015), Independent Conservative 173 (0%, no candidate in 2015), Christian People’s Alliance 164 (0%, no candidate in 2015), One Love Party 67 (0%, no candidate in 2015), Non Party Independent 32 (0%, no candidate in 2015)Liberal Democrat GAIN from Independent with a majority of 1,872 (5%) on a swing of 22% from Ind to Lib Dem

Southbourne (Con defence) on Chichester
Result: Liberal Democrat 646 (58% +16%), Conservative 289 (26% -22%), United Kingdom Independence Party 132 (12%, no candidate in 2015), Labour 53 (5%, no candidate in 2015)Liberal Democrat GAIN from Conservative with a majority of 357 (32%) on a swing of 19% from Con to Lib Dem

Ferndown (UKIP defence) on Dorset
Result: Conservative 2,046 (57% +12%), United Kingdom Independence Party 1,092 (30% -14%), Liberal Democrats 260 (7%. no candidate in 2013), Labour 190 (5% -6%)Conservative GAIN from United Kingdom Independence Party with a majority of 954 (27%) on a swing of 13% from UKIP to Con

Grange Park (Con defence) on South Northamptonshire
Result: Conservative 244 (58% -13%), Labour 105 (25% -4%), United Kingdom Independence Party 49 (12%, no candidate in 2015), Green Party 20 (5%, no candidate in 2015)Conservative HOLD with a majority of 139 (33%) on a swing of 4.5% from Con to Lab

Both Theresa May & Corbyn see drops

Here they are – the latest YouGov favourability ratings, the polling where the site has chosen who/what should be included.

The first time we did this was in August and since then all the UK politicians have seen net drops. Ed Balls, included after his Strictly successes, was not part of the August list.

In the summer TMay was still enjoying her honeymoon and had a net +12%. That’s now down to +5% with 46% favourable to 41% unfavourable. Boris has seen a decline from -5% in August to -13% now (38-51). Meanwhile, just on his heels, comes Strictly star Ed Balls with 32-47%. So he’s in negative territory but nothing like as bad as Mr. Corbyn who has 26-51 representing a net move since last time of minus 10.

Tony Blair might be thinking of some sort of UK come-back but his ratings, 14-74 are awful and he is only just ahead of Putin and Trump.

Donald Trump gets the best numbers from GE2015 UKIP voters who split 45% to 49%. They also have the most favourable view of Mr. Putin.

Mike Smithson

Would the Tories stand aside in a seat where UKIP was 2nd behind LAB

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Today’s Richmond Park by-election highlights a very new development in British politics where the main issue of the day, BREXIT and its implementation, have become more important than parties.

UKIP’s decision to stand aside in Richmond Park as well as the similar move by the Greens on the other side of the argument could mark something very different from what we are used to.

At GE2015 UKIP was runner up in 120 seats most which were held by Labour. If one of those came up could you see the Tories being ready to stand aside to give UKIP a better chance of defeating LAB?

It makes a lot of sense just as in Richmond Park where Greens decided to back the REMAIN contender most likely to beat the pro BREXIT incumbent. One of the stories of the campaign has been the pressure on LAB following its decision to field a candidate in a seat where they’ve failed to do better than third for several decades.

A poor LAB vote share would focus fresh attention on the decision and could impact on future contests.

The winner tonight, whoever it is, will have done so partly because other parties didn’t put up a candidate. I hope the victor acknowledges this in his/her speech.

Mike Smithson

The best analysis & insight on the latest political polling

With this latest PB/Polling Matters podcast the development, pioneered by pollster Keiran Pedley, is two years old during which time there have been more than 900k downloads with the million mark not that far off.

PB began collaborating with Keiran a few months after the launch and since then this has become a key part in the overall site offerings.

On this week’s anniversary edition Keiran is joined by regular contributor Rob Vance and US Democratic Pollster (and one half of ‘The Pollsters’ podcast) Margie Omero.

Keiran, Rob and Margie look again at the US presidential election, Trump’s latest tweets and who to watch out for on the Democrat side looking ahead to 2020.

Later in the show Keiran and Rob talk about Paul Nuttall’s election as leader of UKIP and Keiran looks at today’s ICM poll and explains why Labour focusing on the threat from UKIP may be missing the point.

Follow today’s guests at: @keiranpedley, @robvance, @MargieOmero

Mike Smithson

]]>0Mike Smithsonhttp://www2.politicalbetting.com/?p=909002016-11-29T09:10:04Z2016-11-29T09:10:04ZLD swing that the yellows achieved in Witney which is almost exactly what is required in Thursday’s contest. The only difference is that in this latest by-election the LDs are […]]]>

It’s more than 30 years since an incumbent failed

In much of the discussion on Richmond Park a lot has been made of the 19%+ CON>LD swing that the yellows achieved in Witney which is almost exactly what is required in Thursday’s contest. The only difference is that in this latest by-election the LDs are fighting the incumbent and there is a well recorded incumbency effect.

In fact if you look at other by-elections where the incumbent seeks re-election then they usually do so. In the final year of the last Parliament both Carswell on Reckless switched from the Tories to UKIP and resigned seats to fight by-elections. Both held on though Reckless by a much smaller margin than UKIP’s private polling said he would. In the latter the Tories threw absolutely everything at stopping Reckless because it was paramount that no other CON MPs should follow the same course in the run-up to GE2105.

In the 2005-2010 parliament we had David Davis’s resignation on civil liberties and his subsequent by-election success albeit helped by some other parties standing aside.

The biggest example of the incumbency effect came in Northern Ireland on January 23rd 1986 when every single unionist MP of whichever brand, 15 of them in all, had resigned in protest against the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Each of their parties agreed not to contest seats previously held by the others, and each outgoing MP stood for re-election. All but one of them succeeded. The SDLP managed to take Newry & Armagh.

In England you’ve got to go back to June 3rd 1982, at the height of the Falklands war, to find a by-election failure by an incumbent. Bruce Douglas-Mann had switched from Labour to the SDP in Mitcham & Morden only to lose the by-election to the Tories.

Whether the super-charged atmosphere created by the Falklands war will be matched by feelings on BREXIT in Richmond Park and North Kingston on Thursday we’ll have to see.

BREXIT means no UKIP MEPs from 2019

Today marks another new chapter in UKIP’s short history with the election by a substantial majority of members of Paul Nuttall as party leader. He’s from the North West and has a very different back story than the public-school former city trader, Nigel Farage, that he replaces.

Nuttall said his first objective was to take the battle to Labour which under Corbyn has looked weaker and extremely vulnerable particularly in its heartlands. If Nuttall’s UKIP can do to the red team what the SNP did in Scotland then then Corbyn’s party could be in serious trouble.

Credible parties need elected representatives and this is where UKIP have really struggled when the elections are under first past the post. They’ve just one MP and a relative handful of local councillors given the vote shares that they’ve been managing in recent years.

The other area where they’ve had reasonable success has been winning the PR-related list seats on the Welsh Assembly where overall vote totals matter. Unfortunately the next set of these elections is 2021.

So with the sizeable UKIP representation in Brussels, elected under a form of proportional representation, due to end in less than four years Nuttall needs to build an electoral force that can win when what matters is coming top in a constituency or a ward.